on the television and radio. As Sunday progressed, it became obvious the number of deaths had increased tenfold during the night. The first deaths closer to home had been reported from Leeds, less than thirty miles away.
The few patients who knew her home phone number or email contacted her directly after getting frustrated with listening to the message on the clinic’s emergency number. The connection to the mild cold symptoms had now been publicized in the news and on the internet. Anyone suffering from a runny nose and headache was in a real panic. They were desperate to hear about vaccines or drugs to cure them. Her responses to these calls were not well accepted. Her neighbors and friends, who knew she was a doctor and where she lived, just knocked on her door. She could not give them any peace of mind either.
When she talked on the phone to her clinic partners at noon, she found their experiences had been similar. They met briefly in the office but were unable to come up with any plan of action that was any better than what they were already doing. There were more emails and faxes from the Ministry of Health, but they still did not provide any new information. They did give a special phone number for doctors to access to get help in dealing with SDC. After trying the number for more than half an hour, the doctors finally got through. To their immense frustration, they discovered they could only leave a message on an answering machine. They put the phone down in disgust and despair.
During Saturday and Sunday, Margaret had talked to her parents in Dishforth on the phone several times. Their level of anxiety was increasing with every news report they heard. At the end of a stressful and frustrating Sunday afternoon, Margaret decided there was nothing more she could do for her patients. She would drive over to her parents’ place for dinner and try to calm them down. She got into her car for the short drive, not thinking at all about the ban on all travel that had been announced the previous day.
She encountered the first roadblock at the edge of town. The police officer staffing the barricade was one of her patients, so she had little trouble persuading him to let her past the roadblock; she was a doctor carrying out her medical duties. However, he did warn her that all the major roads had been blocked to enforce the travel ban. Being a local, she was not too concerned. She knew all the back roads and immediately plotted an alternative route to her parents’ house that would bypass all the major roads and the most likely locations for roadblocks.
Half an hour later, she parked in front of her parents’ small bungalow in Dishforth. They were relieved to see her and welcomed her in with even more warmth than usual. She had phoned ahead to let them know she was on her way. By the time she arrived, her mother had dinner ready. As the family ate their dinner together, they discussed the crisis. Her parents were obviously expecting more from their daughter, the doctor, than she was able to provide.
Margaret had no more news than what they had already seen on the TV bulletins. To their great distress, she did not bring a vaccine or any other drugs to prevent or cure the disease that was now spreading rapidly across the country. She patiently explained to them that there were no known medicines to fight SDC. The only protection was to avoid coming into contact with anyone who was already infected.
After dinner, they sat together in the living room, anxiously watching the TV for any news that might give them hope for a cure. They heard only more disturbing news about the spreading contagion and the rapidly increasing number of reported deaths.
The news from Asia and Australia was not encouraging. It was already Monday morning there and the number of reported deaths had increased dramatically, with more than a thousand deaths reported in Sydney and Tokyo.
Her parents were distraught and Margaret was not far behind them. In some ways, her professional experience and knowledge made things much worse for her. She realized SDC could now only be stopped by a miracle.
She dreaded going into the office on Monday morning and facing her patients again with nothing to offer to calm their fears. She decided to stay over with her parents and return to Ripon and her patients early the next morning. After the stressful day, they all decided to go to bed early. Margaret did break down and give both her mother and father a strong sleeping pill from her bag. After lying awake for more than an hour, she took one herself after setting the alarm for six.
She left early the next morning, leaving a note for her parents, who were still asleep. Just before she left the house, she crept into their bedroom to assure herself they had not expired during the night. In her note to them, she promised to come back that evening, after her day at work.
She returned to Ripon by the same back roads route she had taken the previous evening. She avoided any roadblocks until she entered the outskirts of town. This time, she had a much harder time persuading the police officer operating the roadblock to let her through. After a call to his sergeant and to one of her partners to confirm her profession and residence in Ripon, she was finally let through. However, she was warned that a total ban on all automobile use outside city limits would come into effect later that morning. She did not know how she was going to keep her promise to her parents and return to Dishforth that night.
After a quick shower and change at home, she arrived in the office before eight. Both her partners were already in the office, reviewing the latest Ministry of Health bulletins and listening to the latest news on TV.
There was no good news. The number of deaths in Asia and Australia had increased dramatically. The situation in Europe was getting desperate, with nearly fifty thousand SDC deaths already reported. The TV commentators estimated the true numbers would be two or three times that when all the reports were in. In some countries, panic was rampant and civilization was already breaking down.
By nine, the calls from patients were coming in at an unrestrained pace. The doctors were in despair because they were still not able to provide any more helpful advice to their panicking patients. They could only tell them to stay home and to avoid contact with other people to avoid potential contagion contacts.
It seemed that Ripon, like most other European communities, was coming to a standstill, as most people were staying at home and not going to work. There were still no reported deaths in the Ripon area. However, the numbers of deaths reported from the nearest big cities of Leeds, York and Harrogate were mounting rapidly. Everyone anticipated it was just a matter of time before SDC reached Ripon.
Margaret was the first doctor in Ripon to see a case of SDC. She may have suspected, but did not know this for certain, until the next day. When the office opened at ten, one of her favorite patients was first in line. Mrs. McKenzie was nearly eighty and she had been one of Margaret’s first patients when she had arrived in Ripon. Despite suffering badly from acute arthritis, Mrs. McKenzie was always in a cheerful mood.
On Monday morning, she had brought her daughter, Joan, with her. Joan, who lived and worked in Leeds, had just arrived at her mother’s home that morning after traveling on the back roads overnight. Both Joan and her mother were very worried because Joan had begun to experience a runny nose and a mild headache on Sunday. Now they were concerned these were the early symptoms of the deadly contagion now sweeping across Europe and the rest of the world.
Margaret had her own concerns but decided to keep them to herself. She sent them away with the usual common-cold-cure instructions: Stay home, have plenty of rest, drink plenty of liquid and take aspirin as required for the headache.
During the remainder of the office hours, one of her partners had a similar visit from the family of a regular patient who had also arrived from Leeds. The symptoms and the treatment were the same.
At their end-of-day conference, the partners agreed SDC had probably reached Ripon that day. They also agreed there was nothing they could do anyway. It was just a matter of time now. By the end of the day, the Ministry of Health bulletins had stopped coming.
This,
